Truth And Lies: Stories From The Truth And Reconcilliation Commission In South Africa - Softcover

Edelstein, Jillian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862074461 ISBN 13: 9781862074460

Publisher: Granta Books, 2001

Synopsis

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to investigate more than 30 years of human rights violations under apartheid. Jillian Edelstein returned to her native South Africa to photograph the work of this committee and was present at some of the most important hearings, such as that of Winnie Mandela. Portraits are combined with accounts of the treatment suffered under the former system. The project lasted for the duration of four years and involved photographing the victims and perpetrators of crimes committed under apartheid. A record of the atrocities committed and the fight to win justice.

About this title

Review:

Truth and Lies is a harrowing photographic essay by the acclaimed photographer Jillian Edelstein that chronicles South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The Commission met between 1996 and 1998 "to establish as complete a picture as possible of the causes, nature and extent of gross human rights violations--killings, abductions, torture and 'severe mistreatment'--carried out in South Africa between March 1, 1960 and May 10, 1994 by conducting investigations and holding hearings".

As Michael Ignatieff argues in his perceptive introductory essay, the TRC "has become a model for other societies seeking to rebuild their ethical order and reckon with the past". Edelstein's poignant photographs of both the victims and perpetrators of the worst excesses of the apartheid regime reveal the painful and messy reality of rebuilding, remembering and "reconciliation". The most infamous cases of recent South African history are all here--the killers of Steve Biko and Ruth First, Winnie Mandela and her "Football Club", Colonel Eugene de Kock, nicknamed "Prime Evil", to name but a few. But the power of Edelstein's crisp black-and-white photographs lies in the dignity of the people whose husbands, wives and children were murdered and tortured, and the horror and callousness of those who carried out such acts. Edelstein recalls, "It was strange to come face to face with a man like Dirk Coetzee, whose actions epitomised the atrocities of the apartheid regime, and there he was all smiling and sweet and charming, offering me English breakfast tea with his gun strapped to his wrist". In Edelstein's photograph, Coetzee looks like a condemned convict. At the other extreme, Singqokwana Malgas, an ANC veteran, beams from his wheelchair, clutching a fistful of medals, telling his torturers, "If we were only going to get freedom over our dead bodies, I'd like to make them aware we've got freedom". Truth and Lies is a sobering chronicle that captures something of the insuperable problems of facing the truth and reaching reconciliation. --Jerry Brotton

About the Author:

Jillian Edelstein's photographs have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographer's Gallery, London; in France at the International Festival, Arles and the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, where she won the Visa d'Or in 1997; and at the Bensusan Museum, Johannesburg. Her portraits have been published in many periodicals including the New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, National Geographic and the New Yorker.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1862074461
• ISBN 13: 9781862074460
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196